As Texas law students wrap up the school year and lawyers wait to see how the gang of nine decides the remaining U.S. Supreme Court cases this term, it’s time for some reflection.

Julie Grantham has done it all: practiced law in private firms, worked as a nonlawyer executive for a tech company, raised funds for a political group and generated sales for a forensic-investigation company. Now, with her roots planted firmly back in Texas, she is the first general counsel of Boerne-based COI Enterprises.

Big bankruptcies earned five Texas law firms a spot on Texas Lawyer affiliate The American Lawyer’s “Corporate Scorecard 2013,” while energy work secured a place for six other large Texas law firms on rankings of the nation’s top dealmakers in 2012.

The 5th Circuit wrote that the district court characterized a lawyer’s “unsealed filing of the offending document as a ‘vicious, deliberate smear.’ Whatever might have been the negative effect on Employee A’s public reputation, however, we can discern no improper purpose” in the lawyer’s “zealous representation of his client.”

Effective Sept. 1, a new law defines “trade secret” and the actions that constitute misappropriation. It provides for injunctive relief for misappropriation, and in some circumstances, allows “payment of a reasonable royalty” or “affirmative acts to protect a trade secret.”